Is free street parking available in most German cities?

The closer you get to the "shopping mile" and the bigger the city is the more likely you will have to pay. Parking meters are getting less common. Usually you'll find a vending machine where you can buy a ticket (Parkschein) for a certain amount of parking time which you then place on your dashboard. Also Multi-storey car parks are quite common in larger cities. There are always special parking spaces for handicapped people. I doubt that your US placard will be sufficient though.

Plan on paying to park. Of the cities you list I have been to Munich, but have driven around Germany quite a bit and parking inside a city was always an issue.

As Münster has an historic (rebuilded after WW2) city center, parkingspace is limited and is most cases not for free. Parking on special, as handicapped marked parking lots is for free. But I am pretty sure that your us-american placard will not help you, because no german meter maid will know such an US-American handicapped ID. BUT: I would recommend you to directly contact the toursim office of Münster. Maybe they can help you with the parking issue General Information including contact information: http://www.muenster.de/stadt/tourismus/en/ Information for handicapped people: http://www.muenster.de/stadt/tourismus/en/without-barriers.html

I can only speak for Berlin, however.... In the city centers and shopping streets there are usually parking ticket venders, if any. Often, there's rather a parking area or more likely a parking block (well, there isn't much space in the midst of the city). However, away from the center (in the housing areas), you can actually park almost everywhere whithout having to pay anything. And if you plan to visit the center, you should maybe rather use the public transport like the S-Bahn (which is usually well organized, except for tis summer, due to carelessness concerning maintenance). Concerning parking lot for handiapped people: There are some, and they are respected ('cause else the car might get towd away). However, these parking lots belong to one specific handiapped person. But in paking blocks, there usually are several parking lots forhandicapped ones (and they are respected as well... however, parking cost as much as it does for non-handicapped ones).

Most cities, small ones as well as large ones, have parking meters as we're short of parking space. Sometimes handicapped persons are free, sometimes not. And I'm sure foreign disabled cards (or however you may call them) are not valid over here. Foreign Pensioner holders are also not free. But the best is to ask when here. It might be that every place handles different.